Working after intern year? Urgent Care?

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i would also be interested in someone commenting to this post.

also, besides things like administering botox injections, what are some quick procedures that can generate exta money?
 
You are legally qualified to practice medicine and surgery after getting your boards.

That doesn't mean you'll be any good at it.

Practically, you can do urgent care, you can be a hospitalist or work in an ER for a hospital that's REALLY desperate for docs (middle of nowhere and probably hard to find even then), or you may be able to find work in a clinic with other docs, knowing that you'll get paid less/won't get compensated by insurance bc you're not BC/BE. You can be a GMO in the military.

You can also do nonclinical work, either research or business.

If you don't want to just 'punch a clock', I highly recommend finishing a residency. Internship is the hardest part of residency. It gets easier afterwards. You will never have a lot of options if you don't finish a residency, and you may never end up being a very good doctor.

If you have any intention of continuing medicine at all than finish your residency.

If you're really burning out, transfer to a cushy family practice, psychiatry program or rehab program. Many FP and rehab residencies are 9-6 M-F with very little weekend and overnight call. However, your best bet is to burn through whatever speciality you love.
 
Thank you for the reply.

However, do you PERSONALLY know of anyone who had trouble finding work after intern year?

Yes, it seems odd that you'd be able to get a steady job after doing just a one year internship, but please, I'm only concerned with FACTS, i.e. personal stories or people who know of someone in this situation.
 
willbailey said:
Thank you for the reply.

However, do you PERSONALLY know of anyone who had trouble finding work after intern year?

Yes, it seems odd that you'd be able to get a steady job after doing just a one year internship, but please, I'm only concerned with FACTS, i.e. personal stories or people who know of someone in this situation.
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I've actually had a very good experience moonlighting after my intern year while I've done a year of research. There are some interesting opportunities out there depending on where you live in the country. PM me and I'll give you more details if you tell me a little bit more about your situation.
 
willbailey said:
Thank you for the reply.

However, do you PERSONALLY know of anyone who had trouble finding work after intern year?

Yes, it seems odd that you'd be able to get a steady job after doing just a one year internship, but please, I'm only concerned with FACTS, i.e. personal stories or people who know of someone in this situation.
Click to expand...

I have an acquaintance who left residency after IM internship to take time off to reconsider career plans (another field of medicine vs. another field altogether) and wanted to get hours in clinics/urgicares. The problem was not about the license, they had it, but the problem was whether they were able to get credentialed by the facility. They were not able to get credentialed and were not able to get malpractice coverage with only a PGY-1 year and not being currently enrolled in a appropriate residency program (i.e. not pathology). Ended up working for securities firm after 6 months of unemployment/soul searching/loan repayment schedule starting.

If you're really burning out, transfer to a cushy family practice, psychiatry program or rehab program. Many FP and rehab residencies are 9-6 M-F with very little weekend and overnight call. However, your best bet is to burn through whatever speciality you love.
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I wouldn't recommend psych if you're just looking for an easy way to spend your next 4 years. You have to like the patient population and the process, otherwise sitting on your butt for 55 hrs/wk listening to patients telling your about how they alternatively want to slit their wrists or marry their boyfriend can get old in about 2 weeks.

If you don't want to put in the time/effort for residency, work for a consulting firm or for pharma.

MBK2003
 
MBK2003 said:
I wouldn't recommend psych if you're just looking for an easy way to spend your next 4 years. You have to like the patient population and the process, otherwise sitting on your butt for 55 hrs/wk listening to patients telling your about how they alternatively want to slit their wrists or marry their boyfriend can get old in about 2 weeks.

MBK2003
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I strongly recommend against considering psych if you want an easy way out. In my university hospital at least, all of the smaller residencies, including psych, have lousy call schedules and unpredictable work hours, and even if the hours average to a little less, we still violate the 30 hour shift/80 hour week on a not-irregular basis. Plus, it can be exhausting and frustrating. I was dreading my medicine months but they were less stressful than inpatient psych.
 
willbailey said:
I know for a fact that in my state, the requirements to become FULLY LICENSED are (1) earn an MD and (2) Complete at least one year of post-graduate training (i.e. internship).

So, after I finish my intern year, I can get fully licensed. I don't want to hear any moral arguments, please--the law is clear on this one.

Now, what kind of work can I get with this qualification? I am graduating from a well-known US med school, and my intern year is at a very well-known hospital in New England. Can I do Urgent Care? What kind of money can I expect to make? I don't expect hundreds of thousands a year, and I don't expect to be looked on with respect by other doctors. I just want a job.
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Jobs are available for people who have completed an internship year in a variety of fields including Anesthesia, Emergency Medicine, Pathology, Internal Medicine and Family Practice!

The pay is about $50,000! You will be working as a doctor treating patients for a variety of illnesses. 🙂

Seriously, just choose your residency wisely and you should be fine. I would advise against surgical residencies, or residencies which regularly violate the 80 hour work week.
 
I do know of one lady who graduated medical school and did one year of FP and then b/c of health reasons stopped.

She is currently working in an urgent care (always with boarded doctor back-up) seeing low-acuity cases that midlevels could see. She does not make a lot of money.

good luck
 
Thanks. How much roughly does she make? Like I said, I'm not looking for standard physician earnings right now.
 
willbailey said:
Thanks. How much roughly does she make? Like I said, I'm not looking for standard physician earnings right now.
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I honestly don't know for sure, but my guess is around 60,000/year. She functions like a midlevel. That's the going rate for FP midlevel around here in urgent care.
 
That's very interesting...$60k is actually more than enough for a young single guy to live off of, especially since I have never wanted a BMW or a boat or a giant plasma screen TV.

And, like I said, I would be working this way for only a few years, and then later complete a full residency.
 
willbailey said:
That's very interesting...$60k is actually more than enough for a young single guy to live off of, especially since I have never wanted a BMW or a boat or a giant plasma screen TV.

And, like I said, I would be working this way for only a few years, and then later complete a full residency.
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that's not takehome. probably 45,000 after taxes.

you will no longer be in deferrment of you student loans and thus be thrust back into huge minimum payments during this time.

Could be very bad if you have the sort of debt most of us have. If you have little debt than you'd be fine.

later
 
willbailey said:
That's very interesting...$60k is actually more than enough for a young single guy to live off of, especially since I have never wanted a BMW or a boat or a giant plasma screen TV.

And, like I said, I would be working this way for only a few years, and then later complete a full residency.
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But why not just work as a resident for $50k and be a year closer to finishing?
 
To answer your original question: there is very little you can do with 1 year of residency in many states. Personally, I have been trying to get moonlighting jobs for close to a year. Most hospitals, even the desperate ones, do not want the liability of someone with only 1 year of training. Most urgent care centers would rather hire nurse practioners because it is cheaper for their malpractice insurance as well. The only thing I have found which might be available is doing employee physical temp work every now and then for about $500/day. I would recommend calling every hospital, big and small, in your state and seeing if they hire moonlighters, as well as calling some temp companies (most will tell you they won't hire you). Feel free to send me a private message if you want to discuss the matter further. My best advice to you is finish residency- once you're done, you can choose to have an awesome career and make loads of $$$. Just one example- there's a doc up in Breckenridge who rolls in at 9-10am, rounds on 1-7 patients and calls it a day. He's salaried so he gets paid the same whether he works 12 hours a day or 2 hours a day.
 
On a side note anyone know good spots to moonlight in Chicago? I am about to enter my intern year but would like to get an idea of the opportunities available. I am gonna do PM&R so I figure to have some time to moonlight. thx
 
I'm also trying MDSI, a group which specializes in moonlighting. Anyone heard of them?

BTW, I'm young AND VERY much tired--tired of extremely ardurous work. The light at the end of the tunnel is very far away, and to get to it, I would have to sacrifice my youth.

For me, life is much more than just reaching a destination--if I'm not happy on the path it takes to get there, then I'm not going to stay on that path.

I'm not a poor candidate--rather, I got into med school without really understanding what it entailed to be a doctor.

You just can't understand until you're there...
 
You could do consulting. Lucrative. If you don't want to be an MD, why bother with urgent care at all - you're only doing the thing you don't like so much anyway. Why plan on returning at all to medicine when your 30? Your happiness is just as precious then as now. Do you think you'll say well I'm 30 and my 20's were great, so I guess it's now okay that my life will suck? I think you'll find you have less patience for the BS later than now.

Check out McKinsey. They love to hire MDs and PhDs. Also, you could work for CDC or NIH.

I have a feeling that if clinical medicine is not making you happy, you will have no regrets if you leave it. Perhaps, you'll only regret not leaving it sooner.

Good luck.
 
Used to be in consulting prior to med school. Opportunities for consulting are overstated on sdn, but certainly out there. Also pharma & biotech jobs, including marketing & business development work well for MDs (I have a feeling that R&D will not be your thing). I have known a good deal of MDs in both biotech and consulting - you don't need to know anything about medicine- its just the title people like, and if you went to med school at an ivy, they'll like you a whole lot more. If you hate medicine, you should still comlete your intern year (preferred by some consulting firms)...and get out, dont waste your life doing something you hate.
 
Thanks. That's my plan right now: finish intern year, then go from there.
 
willbailey said:
I know for a fact that in my state, the requirements to become FULLY LICENSED are (1) earn an MD and (2) Complete at least one year of post-graduate training (i.e. internship).

So, after I finish my intern year, I can get fully licensed. I don't want to hear any moral arguments, please--the law is clear on this one.

Now, what kind of work can I get with this qualification? I am graduating from a well-known US med school, and my intern year is at a very well-known hospital in New England. Can I do Urgent Care? What kind of money can I expect to make? I don't expect hundreds of thousands a year, and I don't expect to be looked on with respect by other doctors. I just want a job.

I am tired, and I'm not a hero. I just want to make enough money to live off of for a few years, and then perhaps go back and do a full residency at some later time.

I'm young and I don't want to watch my youth slip away from me while working around the clock.

Please help me if you can, but please don't talk down to me about how holy medicine is and how we need to destroy our own lives and health for the sake of our patients.
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WELL SAID
 
What about opening your own office/private practice after just one year of training? I am not 100% sure, but I heard that in some states you can do this, provided you have passed Step 3, took and passed the Boards, and applied for the license in that state. Although, I may be mistaken... or I may have heard that about some foreign doctors with many years of training/experience in their country who decided they were comfortable enough after internship to see patients on their own. Besides, who are the majority of patients in outpatient doctor's offices in IM or FP? If NPs and PAs can see them without MD supervision most of the time, so can MDs with one year of residency training, right? So, the question is about logistics, not ability, and I would like to know the correct answer to that myself...
 
Well I called up some local UCC's and one of the directors told me that ALL of his docs are board-certified...

He's from another country, and he was plenty pissed at how while it's completely LEGAL to work as a doctor after intern year, the insurance companies won't pay unless the doctor seeing the patient is board-certified.

Anyone else have experience moonlighting?
 
if you work as an MD, your main issue will be obtaining adequate malpractice coverage. You may need to go to a rural area where the need is so great, they are willing to take non board cert MD's or allow you to work under an on-duty board cert MD.

You actually may not need to complete a full 12 months of internship to get licensed. I know one person who had no desire to practice medicine and went into business. He wanted to become fully licensed, which he said only required him completing 4 mos of additional clinical training after graduating from med school. He arranged that pretty easily (not part of the match and didn't start a residency training program). After that, he took step 3, got licensed, and went off to start a business. Last I heard he was living well, working <40hrs/week, and making more $$ than he imagined.

good luck in finding your zen
 
Legally, it sounds like you can work in most states as a physician after 1 year of post-grad training (ie. internship). However, the practice of medicine is controlled by the insurance companies who decide that they will pay or they wont pay. The vast majority, if not all, insurance companies will not pay if you are not at least board eligible, which means that you completed a residency in that field.

An internist or obgyn or psychiatrist or pathologist could easily learn to do EGD, but insurance companies will only pay a board eligible (ie. completed fellowship, has yet to take exam), or board certified physician for the procedure. In fact, many companies will place a limit on the amount of time which you can get paid as board eligible, forcing you to take the exam and become board certified.

What you could do is have a boutique practice cash only, but it would be hard to find malpractice insurance and most patients who go to a boutique practice want highly reputed board certified docs.
 
Technically, after 1 year of residency you can set up shop as a doc, but as others have already pointed out, this is in reality impossible to do. Once again I would like to reiterate that it is not easy getting a moonlighting or doc-in-the-box job with just a single internship year. The best option available is research. Consulting jobs are out there, but they prefer people who are established experts in their fields. The MD's who have left residency early on who have done the best that I know of have all pursued careers outside medicine, such as business or law.
 
Surgess said:
I've actually had a very good experience moonlighting after my intern year while I've done a year of research. There are some interesting opportunities out there depending on where you live in the country. PM me and I'll give you more details if you tell me a little bit more about your situation.
Click to expand...
Can you moonlight after intern year if you're not currently in a residency program?
 
annchopepper said:
Can you moonlight after intern year if you're not currently in a residency program?
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If you are a graduate of a US medical school, you can get an unrestricted license after 1 year of residency in 36 or 37 states. You could then theoretically get any physician job. Urgent cares are a possibility, as are disability physicals, some prison work, whatever the local market will bear. People won't exactly be jumping to hire you.

If you're a graduate of a non-US school, I think Georgia will still give you a license after 1 year of residency. No other state will though.
 
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